Growing Tomatoes Indoors
How About Growing Tomatoes Indoors?
Growing tomatoes indoors can be fun and rewarding, just as it is when growing them outdoors. Tomatoes are usually not a difficult vegetable to grow. Tomatoes are warm weather plants, or at least will produce better when days are warm and nights do not become too cool for too long a period. The temperature requirements can usually be satisfied fairly easily when you are growing tomatoes indoors.
Temperature Considerations - Temperature and light are really the key considerations. Let's take temperature into consideration first, since it is usually easy to deal with. Whether you live in an apartment or in a mansion, the temperature will likely be almost ideal from the tomato's point of view. Tomato plants usually perform best when daytime temperatures are in the 70's, and night time temperatures are in the 60's. Those are the temperatures we are usually most comfortable with. When growing tomatoes indoors, one does want to be careful not to allow night time temperatures to fall into the mid to lower 50's or below. That won't kill the plants, but they will not perform nearly as well as when night time temperatures are kept in the 60's. If you grow the plants in a utility room, a basement, or an insulated garage, a space heater might be needed from time to time when nights get cold.
Lighting, A Key Element - Lighting is probably the main challenge, though it depends somewhat on how many plants you're growing. In some areas a south facing window may not be sufficient, even for only one or two plants, as there simply may not be enough bright daylight in mid winter for the plants to thrive. Tomato plants like to have at least 12 hours of light a day, which is easily obtainable throughout the growing season in most places.
If a south facing window isn't going to work, an artificial lighting scheme needs to be put in place. Again, what you need will be determined by how many plants you're intending to grow. For under a half dozen plants, one can probably get by with fluorescent lighting, or grow lights. The former, especially shop lamps are cheaper, while commercial grow lights are more efficient. If you are growing many plants, high pressure sodium lamps or metal halide lighting would be best, though somewhat expensive. The type of lighting you choose will also depend upon where you are growing the plants. You may not want to place a shop lamp in your kitchen.
One suggestion when using fluorescent tubes, whether in reflectors or not, is to mount them vertically, as this seems to give the plants a better distribution of light. An alternate approach is to let the vines grow along the ground or the floor, installing the lighting horizontally and only a few feet above the tomato plants.
The other things to take into account when growing tomatoes indoors, such as soil preparation, water, and feeding, are not greatly different than growing the plants outside. One thing of course is you won't have to work as much dirt, as plants will be in containers, small ones at first, larger ones later. The plants need to be watered just often enough to keep the soil moist, and require no more than the normal amount of fertilizing. Some gardeners suggesting adding a little extra sulfur to the soil when growing tomatoes indoors.
Varieties - As far as what types of tomatoes one should grow indoors is concerned, the best advice is to see what is working for other indoor growers. Varieties used in paste and sauces often seem to do best. Some will tell you the dwarf varieties perform best, or at least are a better choice if this is your first attempt at growing indoors. It may take a little experimenting before you can produce beefsteak tomatoes on a regular basis.
Pollinating - A final item to take into account is pollinating. Unless you plan on having bees in your house or greenhouse, the tomatoes are going to have to be hand-pollinated. This can be accomplished by gently shaking the plants once or twice a week while they're in bloom. Don't forget to do this, or you'll get plenty of foliage and flowers, but not much in the way of tomatoes.